Write-up by Sarah Soanirina Ohmer, Lehman Envision Anti-Racism Collective, CUNY Lehman College, Bronx, New York.
Luchar por la vida: Voces Afro-Colombianas sobre el Paro Nacional
“Death is the only space that we are given in this country. The state defends paramilitaries, it’s very clear who has a right to live in this nation. We are fighting for a life of joy! Much more than the “reforms” proposed! This is about the blood running in our veins. This is about the joy beating in our hearts.”
Vicenta Moreno, Casa Cultural del Chontaduro
Event description: “Colombia is a country striving to reach peace for more than 50 years. Despite the signing of the Peace Accord with FARC-EP in 2016, during the last three years, under right-wing president Ivan Duque, hundreds of social leaders and human rights defenders have been killed, violence against women has increased 20%, massacres and armed confrontations in ancestral territories are generating new internal displacement. Social and economic disparities have exacerbated. Since April 28 Black people have mobilized in the National Strike demanding social and economic change, peace and respect for their collective rights. The Colombian government met the strike with brutal violence killing 47 people, 35 from the city of Cali, in neighborhoods that were primarily Black, poor, and working class. While the strike is not completely called off and now armed civilians supporting Duque’s government are also shooting the protesters, how is this affecting and will affect Black/Afrodescendant people?”
On Wednesday April 12 2021, 7:30pm, I logged onto Zoom to catch up and check in with comrades in Cali, Colombia. Black Communities Process in Colombia (PCN), Afroresistance, and Black Alliance for Peace.
Colombian rap came on as we all entered the online conference room, bobbing our heads as we expressed gratitude in the chat - we were clearly grateful for the opportunity to commune, gather, touch base, virtually, as a global Black community. #elpueblonoserindecarajo, Props to BAP, and a family vibe came through the chat to everyone, as familiar faces got ready to address us from the webinar stage.
As the second song ended, Executive Director Janvieve welcomed the community with a reminder of the importance of language justice. For Black Alliance for Peace, linguistic access to all participants of African descent is central to building international solidarity and global equity. The entire event offered live interpreting from Spanish to English, by Flor and Argelis.
As I sit here reflecting on the event, I find that the panelists left us with three crucial points:
we need to educate our Black masses quickly on the current situation in Colombia from intersectional perspectives,
in order to present facts on our siblings in Colombia, our comrades have to create their own collection of data, reframe all of the articles and reports from the perspective of Black Colombians, and hunt down missing pieces of information, since everything related to Black Colombians is either silenced, filtered through white supremacist media, or absent.
The comprehensive presentations also zoomed into the most consequential impacts of the police repression onto Black Colombians and specific needs for solidarity and international support: the brutal repression, the hundreds of disappeareds, and the absolute invisibility of the victimization of Black mothers and their resistance.
Each speaker made it very clear that the most vital participants in the strike were young Black Colombians, and they were the hardest affected by the violence. We also learned that the violence came from police and military out of uniform, working as militia, targeting specific individuals of African descent in the peaceful protests, committing homicides and assassinations.
Before introducing the first speaker, Charo Mina Rojas spoke from the locus of enunciation of African Diasporic religions, anchoring the gathering to the spiritual activism of our ancestors, the strengths of our orixás, especially Obatalá. A moment of reflection and prayer connected us with our foremothers and forefathers, to our loved ones who have disappeared, asking our orixás for help that they return to us, and recognition to all of the young people who have been fighting in the streets for our freedoms. 165 people were in the room, plus more on Facebook live, from Canada, Colombia, Brazil, the United States, and other parts of the world, listening to the Yoruba Nigerian language of resistance and Candomblé from Bahia, communing with the orixás offering us strength so that we may continue to resist, and live, engaging so that the orí of our young brothers and sisters be protected, asking Obatalá that we may have peace and land that is ours, not a capitalist land.
Out of 47 people who had died already, 35 were from Cali (Indepez), the majority of whom were young adults and 4 of whom were minors.
Of 1,876 acts of violence, there had been 12 cases of sexual violence, and 28 eye injuries reported by Wednesday, along with 963 arbitrary detentions, 548 forced disappearances, 7 Indigenous injured by paramilitary in Cali, and 7 Afro-Colombians killed in Cali.
Harrinson Cuero presented the context of the national strike for people of African descent in Colombia. The explosive cocktail, he explained, made it so that the streets and the government became more dangerous than the virus: structural racism and social alienation, extractivism and inequality, pandemic and death, unemployment, poverty, along with the tax reform. The order of the items on the list, with structural racism at the top, underlined the explosive contents of the cocktail from the most impactful and urgent need to address, to the least. He went on to present each ingredient in the cocktail, to offer the Black Alliance for Peace audience a clear image of the factors that have led to the social unrest of Afro-Colombians from May 5 through the current day.
Cuero listed the facts and the statistics to counter the stigmatized disinformation in mainstream media in Colombia and international news outlets. First, the Black population on the census is about 10% of the population who actually identifies as Black - he showed a map of the census representation in contrast to the actual presence of Black Colombians. Later in the event, Esther Ojulari presented a parallel between the concentration of Black Colombians in Cali, and the points of highest occurrences of police brutality in the past week. Both highlighted the racialization at work over the course of the 20th and 21st century, including in the dire state of affairs in Colombia.
To offer further examples of systemic racism in Colombia, Cuero presented the data of the Black population in Colombia in terms of the age of the Black population from 2005 to 2018 (major decrease in the 0-14 age), the unequal levels of education between Black Colombians and national averages (considerable difference in upper school), and poverty (considerable difference between Black Colombians versus national). He showed us, in numbers, the ingredients of the explosive cocktail.
Esther Ojulari’s presentation focused on the localization of the national statistics: the racialization of Cali and how racial segregation instructed police bruality during the strike in Cali. She traced the segregation back to the nineteenth century forced displacement of “free Blacks” to Cali, followed by the forced displacements during the civil war and the “peace treaty.” The connections to the previous centuries also showed the consistent use of stigmatizing discourse to justify the dehumanization and deaths of young Black people, and to displace the blame of the government and authorities towards young Black people.
The protests and repression, she showed, were happening in the Black neighborhoods of East Cali. “The use of force occurs based on the racialization of the city and on the ethnicity of the protesters,” she noted. Piecing together photos taken by civilians and shared on social media, newspapers, reports, and the cover of the Q’Hubo newspaper which showed the faces of the victims, Ojulari confirmed that out of 36 people who died in the past week, 11 were visibly Black, 1 Indigenous, 6 Mestizo, and 17 were unidentified. “This,” she emphasized, “is an issue. We cannot report the state of affairs and the extent to which it actually affects our people, because no one is tracking the ethnoracial data.” There is an absolute lack of access of data across institutions which needs to be addressed immediately.
Equally indispensable and urgent: an immediate report and follow-up on the inordinate amount of civilians who have disappeared, and an immediate stop to the unjustified kidnappings: 187 as reported from Buscarles hasta encontrarles. More than half of the disappeared from come from areas of Cali that are half to majority Black neighborhoods.
Arleison focused on the police brutality in Cali. He underlined that the police was directly involved in the assassinations of young Black people, children, and women in Cali. 35 out of 47 who have died in the strike, died in Cali. “Two students from our school were injured while making art in their neighborhood.” He went on to list the names of the eight young Black men murdered by the police and their accomplices. The mayor shows no consideration or concern to address the deaths and disorder. The “Primera Línea” and the students are not the ones creating the disorder. The right-wing is directly related to the vandalisms. The dialogues are not effective, as there is no assembly to engage the community’s voices. Arleison underlined the sexual torture as a weapon used against civilians of African descent: “Women are raped in our streets,” Arleison emphasized: “This is the worst human rights crisis in Santiago de Cali.”
Vicenta Moreno, founding member of the Cultural House of Chontaduro in the district of Aguablanca, Cali, spoke on the impact of police repression in 2020 through May 2021 on the lives of Black women. “400 of our children have died this past year! Why haven’t we talked about this?? Tell me. We marched yesterday to demand to bring our children home, and to stop killing them in the streets, when all they are doing are protecting our basic rights. Have you heard about this? Do you know why not? Us, Black mothers of East Cali, we are tired of seeing our children’s blood in the streets.”
70% of the Black population in Cali lives around the Cultural House of Chontaduro. Of the thirty five years that Vicenta has lived in this district, this past year is by far, and remember, she is referencing three decades of known violence in the history of Colombia, this past year is by far the worst in the history of Aguablanca. The district of 23 neighborhoods in East Cali is witnessing excessive numbers of premature death and massive deaths in the area. More so than they have ever witnessed. 407 assassinations of young people in one year.
“Why such silence? No one talks about this genocide?! Just us, hugging each other and embracing each other. We march, we strike, against the tax reform, health reform, pension reform, that we live from a state of precarity. We have already died, for centuries we die due to these policies and to the precarity, the neglect, and the militarization. We are witnessing this on the daily in Aguablanca. Premature death is permanent in our existence. So we march.”
Moreno echoes Cuero and Ojulari on the absolute lack of a focused analysis in Colombia. She adds that the lack of focus is systematically keeping Black women out of he picture: “we march and it’s not seen - as if we aren’t a part of this? Our reality is much deeper, and so we march.” And, she adds, they analyzing the situation for themselves, as a situation lived daily, a state of permanent social death: “Death is the only space that we are given in this country. The state defends paramilitaries, it’s very clear who has a right to live in this nation. We are fighting for a life of joy! Much more than the “reforms” proposed! This is about the blood running in our veins. This is about the joy beating in our hearts.”
For more information on femicide and global accumulation: https://abyayala.org.ec/producto/feminicidio-y-acumulacion-global/
Towards the end of the question and answer, we concluded that alliances across ethnicities have always existed, that we share experiences and have many moments of working together, and that the establishment knows this, which is why they make sure to divide us and hide our solidarities, for example with Cauca and land rights, and by negating one ethnic group’s rights over the other. But we understand this. We have examples of alliances in our own version of history, we can remember this and continue this. Harrison Cuero offered the last words: Political control, economics, and education. These are the three axes we can develop in order to strengthen and empower people of color. Boycotts won’t resolve this - let’s strengthen ourselves.
To support current efforts of solidarity and help young Black people and Black women, send your contributions to the following:
CASA CULTURAL EL CHONTADURO
Account #82900011573
Type: “ahorros” or checking –
Bank: BANCOLOMBIA.
Swift code: COLOCOMBCL1
Bank ID: COLOCOBMXXX
ESTUDENTS UNIVERSIDAD DEL VALLE - FOOD SUPPORT –
make your donation here:
https://vaki.co/es/vaki/q3GE4kJDrxTZz8ZA0Tl9?skip=true#summary
BLACK AFRO-COLOMBIAN COMMUNITIES SOS
– solidarity with community assemblies and Guardia
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